Theatrical Quotations from Recently Running Plays, a CurtainUp Feature

I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers,
and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own
— John Bartlett

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Quotes from Plays

What do you know about this mendacity thing?. . .I could write a book on it and still not cover the subject anywhere near enough! Think of all the lies I got to put up with!-Pretenses! Ain't that mendacity? Having to pretend stuff you don't think or feel of have any idea of? — Big Daddy's mendacity rant in latest Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

I'll make him fight. —Lorna Moon
How?— Tom Moody
How? Oh, leave it to me Tom. . .I'm a dame from Newark, and I know a dozen ways. —Lorna Moon in Clifford Odets' Golden Boy

My middle-aged observation is that, in a relationship between two equals, you can’t both go first. —Catherine, in Rapture, Blister Burn

The history of America is the history of private property. . .This is why we have wars. One group, one tribe, tries to usurp some territory--— Steve in Clybourne Park

I wrestled with reality most of my lifeand I am happy to state that I finally won out over it. Vegas Tickets is your sour in Harvey

In my day, you had to pour God over everything like ketchup. — Former President Hockstader in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man

Attention must be paid— Linda Loman in Broadway revial of Death of a Salesman

God, how I hate Sundays! . . .Reading the papers, drinking tea, ironing. A few more hours, and another week gone. Our youth is slipping away.—Jmmy Porter in the Roundabout revival of Look Back in Anger

And so, when I cast my mind back to that summer of 1936, different kinds of memories offer themselves to me. . .what fascinates me about that memory is that it owes nothing to fact. In that memory atmosphere is more real than incident and everything is simultaneously actual and illusory. — Michael in inDancing in Lughnas revived at the Irish Rep Theater

Good Times and bad times/ I've seen them all/But I'm Still Here --- Carlotta from the anthem song of Follies

Let's be superficial and pity the poor philosophers. Let's blow trumpets and squeakers and enjoy the party as much as we can, like very small, quite idiotic school children— Elyot blowing the trumpet for free-spirited hedonism, and his creator's belief that theater must always entertain in Private Lives

I could not have written it had not so many of us so needlessly died. Learn from it, and carry on the fight. Let them know that we are a very special people, an exceptional people. And that our day will come.—Larry Kramer at the June 12, 2011 Tony Awards ceremony where The Normal Heart won Best Play Revival award as well as Best Featured Performance awards for Ellen Barkin and John Benjamin Hickey.

It is a defect of God's humour that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them. — Lady Croom in the Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us — Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest currently at the Roundabout Theater

Note:Eventually these quotes will migrate into one of our three quote archives: Quotes from Plays. . . Quotes by Theatrical Notables. . . Shakespeare's Little Instruction Book